There is no more universally recognised sign of Scotland and Scottish identity than tartan fabric and Highland dress. The distinctive colours and patterns of tartan appear in many guises in the Portrait Gallery but this full-length portrait is among the most elaborate and picturesque in the entire collection. Every aspect of the picture is designed to emphasise the status, masculinity and valour of the young Lord, shown here in hunting dress, bristling with weapons. He wears a belted plaid – a dou­ble width of tartan about five metres long, belted around the body to form a kilt and cloak. This traditional Highland costume is worn with a fashionable doublet. He holds a flintlock sporting gun; two pistols are tucked into his belt and he also has a dirk and a ribbon basket-hilted sword. His servant, in the background, carries a longbow, used for hunting deer.

Lord Murray (1668–1700) was the fifth son of the 1st Marquess of Atholl, a powerful Highland chieftain, landowner and soldier. Few details survive of the career of his youngest son, Mungo. He was involved in military skirmishes in the north of Scotland in the 1680s and 1690s before setting out for Darién as part of the ill-fated expedition to found a Scottish col­ony in Panama. He was killed by Spanish forces shortly after his arrival. Through his mother’s family, Lord Mungo was related to the Irish Dukes of Ormonde. Our portrait seems to have been painted when Lord Mungo was staying with his relatives at Kilkenny Castle in south-east Ireland. An equally flamboyant full-length portrait by Wright (now in Tate Britain) shows Sir Neil O’Neill in the costume of an Irish chieftain, and the two works were perhaps conceived as companion pieces depicting Scottish and Irish national dress.

The artist, John Michael Wright, counts among the finest British portrait painters of the seventeenth century. Although he was born in London, he was apprenticed to the Scottish painter George Jamesone in Edinburgh. After around five years in Scotland, he moved to Rome where he established a reputation not just as an artist but also as a dealer and collector. He returned to England in 1656 and, after the restoration to the throne of King Charles II, received some important royal commissions. He was also commissioned by the City of London to produce a set of full-length portraits of the ‘fire judges’ who had adjudicated on property disputes fol­lowing the Great Fire of 1666. Wright, like many of his sitters, was a Catholic. He left London for Ireland in 1679 during a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment and remained there until around 1683, when the Murray and O’Neill portraits were prob­ably painted. In contrast to the polished glamour of contemporary portraits by artists such as Peter Lely, Wright’s work is characterised by a frank realism. Although it may have been intended as a costume piece, his image of Lord Mungo remains extremely impressive for its convincing individuality and direct observation of the proud young nobleman.
 

This text was originally published in 100 Masterpieces: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2015.